Our raison d’être is to make it easier to be a working mum. That’s why we wanted to demystify the fabled work-life balance and see in black and white exactly what it takes to be a working mum today – whether you’re a jewellery designer in Birmingham, a teacher in York or in finance in London. From the merits of various childcare arrangements, to how much it actually costs (and how that differentiates up and down the country), we’re using this space to bring attention to one of the least talked about aspects of our lives – and crucially, how women make it work for them. You never know, you might just be inspired to change your own arrangement…
As told to Rebecca Cope
For this article, we spoke to Birmingham-based Emma, who has a two-year-old daughter and six-year-old son. Her and her husband do a pretty even split of the childcare, yet despite the fact their youngest is in nursery only two days a week, it still costs them £600 a month. Here’s how she makes it work.
“We spend around £600 a month on childcare – more during the school holidays. My husband and I each work 4-day weeks, so on our days off my daughter is home with us. My son gets dropped off and picked up straight from school on those days. For the remainder of the week my son is in wrap-around care at school (7.45am-6pm) and my daughter is in nursery (7.30am-6pm) for at least two days, with grandparents having her for one day a week if they can. Inevitably, I have days where despite being off, there’s still a bit of work to do – a creche like at The Working Mum Club would make days like this infinitely easier!
“My husband and I both have commutes of around one hour, so if one of us does drop off, the other does pick-up, so we can always either go in early or work late to make the days more manageable. On days where my parents have my daughter they often meet me somewhere on my commute and we pass her over in a car park. Thankfully, our school and nursery are just around the corner, a five-minute drive or 20-minute round trip if we walk it.
“Typically when we aren’t on our days off, we wake up and get the kids straight out the door for breakfast in the childcare setting, and after pick up straight home for a quick dinner, bath and then to bed at 7.30pm.
“If I have to get to work I try to set an alarm early and get myself ready before the kids wake (I’m rarely successful!), but most of the time I just do as much as I can (shower, wash hair, lay out clothes etc) the night before and then do my make-up in the car after drop off… my husband always finds time for his shower, shave etc and just skips bits of the kids routine, I think I need to get better at this!
“If one of the kids is sick, my husband and I argue over who has the easiest day to cancel and stay home – usually the child in question gets a lot of screen time!
“Nursery is year round but my son’s school and wrap around care is only term time. We beg grandparents to do days and sign up for as many summer camps and clubs as we can – I’ve found the childcare hours are always a lot shorter though so it becomes much more difficult.
“I’d love an au pair or similar, this would help with the time pressure on office days, but mostly to help with all the household jobs so that the time I do get to spend with my kids was better quality rather than me running round doing chores whilst nagging them to get ready.
“We’ve discussed that when my youngest is at school we’ll both go to 5 days working and perhaps then be able to afford some more help, but I can’t decide if this might just be more stressful.
“We have lived abroad, and would love to again, but all of our family is in Birmingham and we get a huge amount of support and love the relationship our kids have with their grandparents, so I can’t see us moving away from that.”